page_title: SS Springfjord
section_title: Responsibility
hierarchical_section_title: SS Springfjord / Responsibility
caption_attribution_description: English: Lockheed P-38M
context_page_description: SS Springfjord was a 2,036 GRT cargo ship that was launched in Norway for a British shipping company in 1939, taken over by Nazi Germany in 1940, re-taken by the United Kingdom in 1945 and destroyed by the CIA in Guatemala in 1954.
  In 1939 Trondhjems mekaniske Værksted of Trondheim, Norway launched Springfjord for Springwell Shipping Co, Ltd of London. Springwell created a separate company, Springfjord Shipping Co, Ltd, to actually own the ship. Springford was a conventional cargo steamer of her era, powered by a three-cylinder triple-expansion steam engine of TMV's own manufacture.
context_section_description: The US government had ordered the CIA coup partly because it opposed a Guatemalan decree to nationalize unused foreign-owned farmland. A CIA secret memorandum dated 1 July 1955 confirms that the pilot who attacked Springfjord was a US national and that the CIA field command ordered him to do so, but asserts that the field command did not have authorization from CIA Headquarters.
  The US United Fruit Company (UFC) owned 42% of Guatemala's agricultural land, and in the UK House of Commons some British Labour Party MPs implied that the UFC was behind the coup. A United Nations fact-finding committee had gone to Central America to investigate events in Guatemala, so on 5 July 1954 the Labour MP Philip Noel-Baker suggested that this committee should investigate whether the UFC had anything to do with obtaining the aircraft used to attack Springfjord. Noel-Baker's Labour colleague John Strachey MP suggested that the UK government should try questioning the UFC.
  During the same exchange in the Commons, other Labour MPs pursued the suspicion that the USA had orchestrated the coup. Geoffrey Bing MP asked the Conservative government's  Minister of State for Foreign Affairs, Selwyn Lloyd, to ask the US government whether it sold the ammunition to the Guatemalan rebels. Lloyd retorted "the hon. and learned Gentleman, in assuming that the United States Government are responsible in some way for this, is, I believe, stating something which is wholly divorced from the truth." George Wigg bluntly asked "Will the Minister be good enough to answer "Yes," or "No," to a simple question? Is it a fact that American aircraft, manned by American pilots, machine-gunned Guatemalan civilians and dropped napalm bombs on Guatemala, and that Her Majesty's Government were well aware of that fact?" Lloyd insisted "That is certainly not the case. Her Majesty's Government have no information of that kind whatsoever."
  On 20 October 1954 the Labour MP Leslie Plummer alleged in the House of Commons that the British Consul at Puerto San José told Springfjord's Master, Captain Bradford, to keep silent about the sinking of his ship and took from him a set of photographs of the incident taken by a member of Springfjord's crew. The Conservative Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, Robin Turton, replied claiming that the British Embassy in Guatemala City had merely asked Bradford "in view of the political situation in Guatemala, to inform them of any statement that he might be making to the Press". Concerning the photographs, Turton claimed that the Vice-Consul had taken the film to be developed and returned it to Captain Bradford a few days later.
caption: A Lockheed P-38M Lightning like the one with which Ferdinand Schoup dropped napalm bombs on Springfjord
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